Traditional manual bare circuit board fault verification has been a tedious process. Most of the associated equipment merely provided a visual aid in the fault verification process. Typically a flying prober would be utilized for this purpose which traditionally was used to test prototype circuit boards providing the benefit that a test fixture did not have to be devised for the prototype circuit board. Using a flying prober provided the benefit of making it easier to test fine pitch test sites on the circuit boards. A problem with flying probers is that they are slow in testing the circuit board due to the requirement for manually contacting each required test site on the circuit board, which in contrast to a fixture which can test all the test sites on the circuit board simultaneously.
Traditional repair stations have also been used for fault verification for bare circuit boards. Traditional repair stations are graphics based having software which illustrates the circuitry to indicate where the possible failure could be. The repair station utilizes the failure data from the tester and verifies the failure data by hand placement of probers. Software used in connection with traditional repair stations provides risk areas for areas such as shorts or opens based upon the physical layout of the circuitry and the likelihood of leads in close proximity to each other. Plasma displays including a glass hood where the circuit is projected and the error is highlighted also have been used in repair stations. This method is unacceptable due to the ever shrinking size of today's circuit boards and the associated closeness of test locations. Conventional repair stations simply helped an operator locate a failed net end point designated by the tester, but stopped short of helping verify the fault and tracking down the location of the actual defect.
Flying probers have also been used as repair stations to verify error data from a tester. Typically there are two kinds of flying probers, namely, vertical probers and horizontal probers. In a vertical flying prober, the circuit board to be tested stands vertically upright and a probe contacts the board from either side depending upon the test site locations. The board is manually loaded and held in an upright position by hand manipulated clamps which are moved to the appropriate position and tightened to secure the circuit board. A disadvantage with vertical flying probers is that it is time consuming to manually move each clamp into position and manually manipulate the clamp to secure the circuit board. In the horizontal flying prober, the circuit boards are manually loaded into a drawer which is pulled out from the frame structure of the prober. Clamps hold the board to secure the circuit boards in a horizontal position. Again, the disadvantage in a horizontal flying prober is the time consuming and labor intensive procedure of manually loading boards in the drawer for testing.
Consequently, a need exists for a flying prober verification and repair station with an improved ability to track down the location of an actual defect and verify the fault.